The information was collected with the support of the United Nations Population Fund.
The results of the ‘Survey to identify vulnerabilities in the LGBTIQ + population, in the framework of the COVID-19 pandemic’ show that there are higher percentages of unemployment among people in this population group who identify as transsexuals and transvestites.
The percentage of unemployment ranged between 38% and 83%, if the respondents are distributed according to their gender identity. On transsexuals was 38%, in transmasculine 43%, in transfemale 50% and in transvestite 83%.
What is the meaning of each of the letters of the LGBTI acronym to which some add Q and +?
According to sexual orientation, Unemployment affected 39% and 34% of respondents who consider themselves bisexual and gay, in their order, while in those who consider themselves heterosexual it was 23%. In lesbians and others the unemployment rate reached 28%.
The results of this survey, aimed exclusively at members of the LGBTIQ + community in 21 of the 24 provinces of the country, were presented on the afternoon of November 9 in a discussion via Facebook Live.
The 32% of the total respondents were unemployed, 29% underemployed, 7.7% had an unpaid job, 2.5%, other non-full employment and 28% had a job considered full or adequate.
The Fundación Mujer & Mujer, the National Council for Gender Equality, and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) collaborated in carrying out this survey, which also covered access to health, among other aspects.
41.3% of those surveyed stated that they did not have sufficient access to health services and medicines and 56.6% responded that they had limitations in receiving sexual and reproductive health services and contraceptive methods.
The most required drugs, according to the survey, were antiretrovirals and drugs for chronic and catastrophic diseases.
The last investigation carried out by the National Institute of Statistics and Censuses (INEC) to make a diagnosis of the living conditions and access to rights of the LGBTIQ + population was in 2013.
The purpose raised at that time with the information collected was to contribute to decision-making and the construction of public policies in this regard, according to the agency’s website.
Lía Burbano, activist and executive director of the Mujer & Mujer foundation, affirms that for eight years it has been expected to find one more study, without results. “What is not named does not exist, and that is the point, the LGBTIQ + populations of Ecuador still do not exist for the State, at least statistically speaking. During the most critical months of the pandemic, some civil society organizations sought to support those most in need … The frustration came later when we did not know where to go, we had help but we did not know who to deliver”.
INEC carried out a first exercise to incorporate variables of sexual orientation in the employment and unemployment survey
The activist highlighted that the INEC will hold workshops on November 15 and 16 to analyze the inclusion of variables in the surveys that reflect the situation of the LGBTIQ + community.
Lidia García of the National Council for Gender Equality responded that she works with the official body of figures in the country so that the studies she does have a complete gender perspective, that is, not only about sex, but also with respect to gender identity.
The lack of updated and official information on who is part of this population group and their income conditions, for example, limits the delivery of direct aid.
Markus Behrend, representative in Ecuador of the United Nations Population Fund, spoke in the discussion about the importance of having disaggregated official data that reflect the conditions of the population groups at risk of being excluded and that one of the objectives of the organization is help states improve their capacities to collect information on the matter.
The representative referred to the national data on income poverty, which rose 6.7 percentage points between June 2019 and the same month of this year, rising from 25.5% to 32.2% of the population. “That is, approximately 5.6 million people in Ecuador live on less than $ 2.82 a day.”
At the end of the discussion, Felipe Ochoa, Undersecretary of Diversities, an entity attached to the Secretariat for Human Rights, intervened.
The official affirmed that the generation of statistical policy for decision-making is an inescapable responsibility of the State and that one of the objectives of the INEC workshops is to report on the first experience of the context in which the variable of sexual orientation and gender diversity was tested for the first time in the country’s history in the national survey of employment, unemployment and underemployment of Ecuador and what are the challenges in this regard. (I)
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